The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola [164]
“Meanwhile, they kept the inheritance,” Madame Lecœur commented.
“Oh, no, my dear. He got his share.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“Oh, you can tell,” the elderly woman answered after a short hesitation and without offering any further evidence. “In fact, he took more than his share. The Quenus have lost several thousand francs. With a man of vices, money simply disappears. Maybe you hadn't heard. There was another woman.”
“That doesn't surprise me,” La Sarriette interjected. “Those skinny men have a lot of pride.”
“Yes, and not all that young, this woman. When a man wants it, he wants it—he'd grab them from anywhere. Madame Verlaque, the wife of the former fish inspector. You know her, that yellow-faced woman …”
But the other two would not accept that. “It's not possible. Madame Verlaque was in terrible shape.”
But Mademoiselle Saget had taken off. “I'm telling you. Are you calling me a liar? There's proof. Letters have been found from this woman, a whole bundle of letters in which she asked him for money, ten and twenty francs at a time. It's pretty obvious, that's what killed her husband.”
La Sarriette and Madame Lecœur were convinced. But they were growing impatient. They had been standing out on the street waiting for more than an hour. Their stalls might have been robbed in the meantime, they said. So Mademoiselle Saget found yet another story to hold them there. It was impossible for Florent to escape. He was going to come back, and it would be something to see him arrested. And she gave the most minute details of the plan, so that the butter vendor and the fruit vendor continued to examine the building, looking it up and down, trying to peer through every chink and crack in the hopes of seeing the caps of the sergents de ville. But the house was calm and silent, bathing in the morning sunlight.
“You'd never guess that it's full of police,” said Madame Lecœur.
“They're all up there in the attic,” said the older woman. “They left the window just as they found it. But wait, isn't that one of them hidden behind the pomegranate on the balcony?”
They craned their necks and saw nothing.
“No, just a shadow,” said La Sarriette. “Even the little curtains don't stir. They all must be sitting down up there and not moving.”
At that very moment she saw Gavard walk out of the fish market looking preoccupied with something. They glanced at one another, their eyes gleaming, and not a word passed between them. They had huddled close together, standing very erect in their full skirts. The poultryman crossed over to them.
“Have you seen Florent around?” he asked.
They didn't answer.
“I need to talk to him right away,” Gavard continued. “He isn't in the fish market. He must have gone back home. But then you would have seen him.”
The three women were looking a little pale. They were still staring at one another, looking very serious, with a quiver in the corner of their lips. Since her brother-in-law still hesitated, Madame Lecœur snapped, “We've only been here five minutes. He probably came by before that.”
“Then I'll go up and take a chance climbing five flights,” Gavard answered with a laugh.
La Sarriette started to move to stop him, but her aunt grabbed her arm and whispered in her ear, “Let him go, you big idiot. It's what he deserves. That'll teach him to step on us.”
In a lower voice Mademoiselle Saget muttered, “He won't be telling people I eat bad meat anymore.”
Then the women had nothing to add. La Sarriette blushed bright red, the other two remained yellow. They now turned their heads, embarrassed to look at one another. They didn't know what to do with their hands, so they hid them under their aprons. Intuitively their eyes wandered to the house, following Gavard through the stone walls, watching him climb five flights of stairs. When they estimated he had arrived in the bedroom, they began to shoot hard sideways glances at one another. La Sarriette laughed nervously.